“Why don’t you ask Erland to help you?” I hissed.
“Erland?”
There was no mistaking her amazement. “I know your Erland too,” I whispered, savage.
“But how…?”
“Has he not spoken of me?” I asked, a pathetic twist of hope inside me.
She shook her head; her hair had slipped down from its binding.
“He is a traitor, a two-timer…,” I began.
She sounded alarmed. “Don’t speak of it…”
“I will speak of it!” I spat out. “He was mine, and is now most surely yours. Look to him for rescue, not me.”
“I can’t ask him. It would be impossible. It would endanger his position…”
“And what of mine? Why should I risk my own life for you?” A desire to hurt her engulfed me. “You’re avian—disgusting, despicable, cursed.” I spat all the words out with a huge, horrible satisfaction, and I saw her step backward, a pale hand to her throat.
“Scuff? You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t understand.”
“You think because I am a little servant girl, I don’t understand. You think Erland understands? Does he know what you are, Miss Leah?” It was surely not me, saying this with such ferocity?
She came toward me and laid a hand on my sleeve. Her eyes, shining in the dim light, were huge and dark. “Please, Scuff, say nothing. Not for my sake—for Erland’s. Don’t betray him. Say nothing of his other life, whatever you do.”
“He will betray you in turn,” I whipped out. “Why is he here amongst these grand folk? They are corrupt, and so is he. Watch him, Miss Leah.”
She drew herself up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You understand nothing. Whatever Erland may have meant to you once, you must forget it, here of all places. Don’t you see the danger you could put him in?” She stared at me, then added as a muttered afterthought, “He is too old for you, anyway.”
“Then you are welcome to him,” I said furiously. “You both deserve each other.” I flung away from her, but she came after me.
“Scuff, don’t go, please understand. I’ve known Erland for such a short time and there’s no future for us—everything is hopeless, for I must marry Caleb. I know you cannot help me now, you would not want to.” She paused; her voice shook. “I give Erland back to you, Scuff, whatever I’ve taken. He is free for you.”
“But he does not want me now,” I flung at her. “Not now he has set eyes on you! If I’d stayed longer in the Wasteland, it would have been me!”
It gave me a hollow satisfaction to see her start as I mentioned the Wasteland. She recovered, spread her hands. “I didn’t know you loved him too.” She lowered her voice even further. “I know so little of his past—it’s scarcely ever safe to talk. Tell me—how did you meet? How does he live—in the Wasteland?”
He called me Silky.
I couldn’t speak.
She hesitated, uncertain. “There’s nothing to cry for, Scuff, please stop.”
But then I stumbled away from her, from the pavilion; ran from the black lawns and the impassive guards; from Erland himself wherever he was, the coward and the cheat.
38
Some of the lanterns had burned themselves out. I blundered along the dark path; the white roses either side of me glimmered like ghost flowers. I had shed only one tear, one little tear for myself, and that had quickly dried. I burned with anger.
A guard with an oil lamp loomed in front of me. “Where are you going, Miss?”
My anger died as if dowsed with cold water and was replaced by fear. I hesitated; for a moment I did not know. I was nothing—nobody—with nowhere to go. Then I stammered, “M-my chamber, outside the Boy Musician’s apartment.”
“Let me escort you, Miss. You’ll be questioned if you walk alone in the Palace.”
I would not have known my way back through the silent courtyards with their darkened buildings. The yellow glow of another lamp approached us. It was a second guard, who said curtly to my companion, “Who is she? Has she been verified?”
“I’m the girl who sang at the supper dance, Sir,” I managed to say. The second guard looked surprised.
“Have you not heard, Miss? The young master’s asked for you. He’s put word about that you’re to be found and brought to him.”
My heart gave a sudden leap from its pit of despond. “The young master?”
“Master Caleb, the Lord Protector’s son, no less. We’ll take you to him without delay. He’s in his mother’s room.”
The guard with me gave a muffled snigger. “Ever his mama’s boy,” he whispered to the second, who gave a warning jerk of his head toward me.
I could not think why the Lord Protector’s son should want to see me. And I was still bareheaded, without the disguise of my hat and veil that Titus Molde had told me to keep on at all times.
I was in such a state of anxiety by the time we reached Caleb Grouted’s apartment that I could scarcely walk. We passed his personal guards and entered a series of fine paneled reception rooms, where lamps still burned and gold-framed portraits of Protectors from another, gentler, age were hung upon the walls. The two guards with me led me to a door that stood slightly ajar, in a lighted passage.
“Someone will see you back afterward. Knock first, Miss, and loudly—case he’s saying his prayers,” said one of them, in a low voice. The other sniggered again.
“Will his mother be in there too?” I whispered.
The guard winked at his friend. “Only in spirit, Miss. The Lady Sophia’s been dead these long years. Passed away from the plague on Master Caleb’s eighth birthday.” The other nodded his head in mock gravity, then they hurried away, as if anxious to leave the apartment as swiftly as possible.
I stood, hesitating. This was my chance at last: I’d be alone with Caleb.
Or I could run—run straight into more guards, who might arrest me there and then.
I could hear Caleb talking within—muttering. The hairs rose on my neck. There was someone in there with him—the ghost of his mother! I peered through the opening.
I could see little: he had his back to me, had taken his wig off, and was kneeling beside what appeared to be a bed entirely covered with black silk, unless it was a coffin. I heard him clearly though, for he raised his voice to a wail: “Mama! Mama! Tell me what to do.”
I took a deep breath and knocked firmly. I saw his face turned toward me in astonishment: a flushed, petulant, wet face, his handsome looks melted away by tears, his dark hair rumpled. But the red-rimmed eyes were wary and dangerous.
“Go away!”
“I’m sorry, Sir. I was mistaken…”
“No, wait. It’s the chit who sang, isn’t it? Come in. I asked for you.” His voice was thick with tears and drink.
He scrubbed his puffy face with a corner of the black silk as I entered, then held it against his lips, regarding me over the top of it like a small child as I took in the room. It was entirely black, except for the myriad of white candles burning on an ebony-topped chest and reflected in the mirror that hung over it. They seemed to devour all the air with their cold flames, for it was exceedingly stuffy, but they brought no light for there was none to be had in that black, black room. Black drapes hung in folds over the great mahogany headboard, thick black velvet curtains hid the windows, panels painted black covered the walls and ceiling.
It was a room of mourning, mourning that had grown into an obsession for the boy who had been eight years old when his mother died.
The portrait of a grave young girl hung over the bed; she gazed at me sadly, and for a moment I looked back. The painting was of her head and shoulders, the only thing of color in the room. She wore her dark hair coiled into the nape of her neck; her tragic eyes were remarkable and seemed alive.
“Look at her,” said Caleb. “Go closer.” It was an order. I stepped a little closer. “What do you think of her?”
“I know nothing about painting,” I stammered, “but sh
e is very beautiful, Sir.”
“That is my mama. You see—I look like her, don’t I?”
“You have her eyes, Sir,” I said politely, and it was the truth. His eyes were a dark blue and still striking, though reddened by weeping.
“I ask Mama what to do and she tells me.” He looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for a reaction.
I hesitated. “Was this her chamber, Sir?”
“Her bedchamber, yes. No one else shall have it, ever.”
He is mad, I thought, and I am alone with him. I licked my lips. “Why did you want me, Sir?”
“I liked the look of you. Sing to Mama. She will like you too.”
My skin prickled. He made me face the portrait while he lay on the black bed and looked at me. I sang the shortest song I know, a lullaby about a sleepy thrush. Somehow the lady’s calm, sad eyes, her dark-haired beauty, seemed to give me courage in that cold, dead room. When I looked at him at the end of the song, he had tucked his thumb into his mouth and his black lashes were lying on his cheeks. I thought he might be asleep.
Now I could do it, I thought, reach down to my boot, pull the dagger out, slide it from its sheath…. He will never know what killed him. So easy, so quick, so quiet—so much blood.
There would be too much blood on the black silk, a lake of blood. I could not let the lady see it. I turned away to tiptoe out.
“Not so fast!” His hand reached out and grabbed my dress; the delicate silk was crushed in his fist. He saw the shock on my face, and his voice took on a whining note. “I don’t want you to leave us yet. Sing some more.”
“My voice is a little tired, Sir,” I whispered. “Please let go.”
He flung himself back on the bed pettishly. “No one loves me. Not you, not Leah Tunstall—whom I must marry, Papa says—not anyone but Mama.”
“Your father loves you, Sir.”
His face twisted. “Papa?” He crouched up with his knees to his chest, pulled the black silk to his face again and began to rock himself backward and forward on the bed. “I am frightened of Papa,” he moaned, shaking his head, “frightened, frightened. Big bad man, so rough with little Caleb.”
He looked at me, rubbing his lips with the black silk; his eyes gleamed as he watched me. “Don’t leave me, sweet sparrow,” he crooned. “Come here, little bird, come.” He stopped rocking. He murmured, “If you will not come to me, then I must come to you—stop you flying away.”
He swung his legs off the bed in a sudden movement. Before I could draw away, he had grasped my hand. He was taller than his father. “Now you can’t fly, can you?” He looked down at me, smiling. I gasped as he dug his nails into the flesh at the base of my thumb. He shook his head again, smiling all the while; pressed harder. He seemed to enjoy my pain. “No one can hear you, little sparrow.”
Beyond his arm I saw the portrait. With my free hand I pointed. “Your mother can! She looks at you and weeps!”
His smile died. He swung around, letting go of me. With a cry of anguish that echoed around and around that funereal room, he threw himself facedown on the great black bed.
And I escaped.
39
Chance felt the familiar shudder go through him as he looked down at the swanskin.
“What will you do?” Mather was saying to the Lord Protector. “I presume you won’t be giving it back to Miss Leah after the wedding.”
“Too right, Mather,” said the Lord Protector. He stared with satisfaction into the glass cabinet, where the swanskin lay in all its pure white perfection upon the black velvet. “My dear niece must produce an heir first—my grandson. Don’t want her flyin’ off before that, do we?” He laughed loudly and took a turn around the cabinet, his hands behind his back. “Besides, it’s pretty, ain’t it? Something to show off, meantime.”
To set such store by feathers! Chance thought briefly, then for the umpteenth time he began to churn over the night of the supper dance a week ago now. He’d known the girl up on the stage, even before she started singing to the music of the ratha. How could he not? He knew everything about her: her small hands, her slight body, the way she dipped her head nervously. Even the grand dress, the hat and veil she wore at first, could not hide her from him.
So why had he not reported her immediately? He didn’t know; nor why he’d been drawn back to the dance to see her after the Protector and Mather had retired. She had been standing so close to him! He could have told any of the guards. But instead, like a fool, he’d asked her to dance and she had scorned him.
So why hadn’t he taken his revenge and informed Mather that he had discovered the girl, Number 102, within the Palace itself? Perhaps it was because the moment had never seemed right.
But now it was—now, while the Lord Protector was here, while the three of them were together privately in this small, hushed room.
Sweat broke out on his forehead: it was very hot, airless. There had been a heat wave the last few days. As he opened his mouth, the swanskin seemed to glitter in his eyes. He took a step back from the cabinet and Mather spoke.
“My Lord, more deaths have been reported today,” he said quietly to the Protector. “I fear the Miasma is beginning to seep through the Capital. Soon the members of the Ministration will become nervous of remaining in the city. Some have already left for their country estates.”
The Protector pursed his thick lips. He paced to the corner of the room and back again, his lidless eyes unreadable. Then at last he spoke. “If I brought the weddin’ forward, could you get the security arrangements organized in time?”
“When for, Sir?” said Mather calmly.
“The sooner the better. The day after tomorrow, say?”
Mather did not show any reaction. “There would be no problem, Sir. There is excellent liaison between the Militia and the Enforcers. The men have rehearsed the event already. They all know their positions, they’ve been highly trained.”
“I’m sure they have,” said the Protector drily. “So they don’t fear the Miasma themselves, eh? Can’t have ‘em running from the scabby crowds.”
“They’ll be issued with the new protection masks. They know the rules. Any deserters will be shot, you may take my word for it.”
“I’ll make things easy for you, Mather,” said the Protector jovially. “I’ll bring Curfew forward a couple of hours that day. Say we time the weddin’ for immediately after the bells have rung?”
Mather nodded. “It will mean the crowds will have dispersed, certainly.”
“And their germs, Mather!” The Protector paused. “Can’t see any other problems.”
Mather sucked his cheeks. “The scaffolding will still cover the West façade of the Cathedral.”
“The new doors will be in place—that’s what matters, man. The steps to the crypt have been cleared and reinforced. The guests can be taken down after the service.”
“But the overseas guests—the heads of state, politicians, ambassadors and so on—we cannot inform them in time, Sir.”
“That won’t matter.” The Protector slapped his thigh. He was full of energy, unaffected by the heat in the room. “We’ll make it a small, intimate affair, for the Members of the Ministration only. It will certainly lessen the security risk. We’ll hold a big reception in the autumn instead for our foreign friends. We might even have some special news to give ‘em by then—an heir on the way, eh?” He winked at his right-hand man. “Meanwhile, we must let the Ministration know the change of plan immediately.”
“What about the Messenger?” Mather frowned. “Sometimes I wonder if we are right to trust him.”
“Indeed, we must tell the Messenger. I don’t believe you trust anyone, do you, Mather?” The Lord Protector smiled. “I leave the prisin’ out of traitors to you, my friend. I know you won’t let me down. Any enemies in the Palace—or, indeed, at the weddin’ itself—won’t stand a chance.”
Nate held the tiny bird between his cupped palms. At first it had fluttered wildly; now it lay quiet. He could f
eel its heart, small as a thimble, jerking against his fingers. He went over to the open window. Beams of low orange sunlight slashed the floor.
“What are you doing?”
It was Scuff, coming through from her bedchamber. She looked pale, drained with the heat.
“A bird flew in.” He raised his hands and released it as he spoke. For a moment he thought that it was already dead, that it would fall, but then it flew off in a series of funny nervous little leaps before it soared into the air.
“A bird?” She swayed; for a moment he thought she would faint.
“A sparrow, poor little creature.”
“Nate, it signifies the Brevity of Life!”
He shook his head. “You are mistaken,” he said gently. “Sparrows signify Friendship.”
“But if a bird—any bird—flies into the house, it signifies Bad Luck, even Death!” She put a hand to the amber stone she always wore around her neck, and stared wildly out at the courtyard where the leaves had turned to crinkled ochre and ravens pecked in the dust beneath the trees.
“It depends which way you look at it,” he said, concerned by her reaction.
“For me, it must mean the second Significance. I have no friends.”
“You have me,” he said awkwardly. “Anyway, some say the Table of Significance is nothing but a collection of old superstitions.”
“Hush, Nate! That’s blasphemy!”
“I’m not sure I believe them.”
She stared at him. “But you wear your jasper…”
“To keep me safe, yes. You need something like that in this place. It reassures me, I suppose.” He smiled lopsidedly and fiddled with the pale green stone. “You know—the cry in the night, the knife in the dark.”
Beneath her old black felt hat, she looked alarmed. Droplets of sweat pearled her upper lip. He wondered why she didn’t take the veil off: it must be so hot and he couldn’t care about her scars.
“Knife?” she said in a high voice.
“Oh, nothing—it was a jest.” This was the first proper conversation they had had since the night of the supper dance—she had been so distant with him the past week he thought he must have offended her in some way—and now it was all going wrong.
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